These results were publish in the journal Nature Geoscience. The data have revealed a landscape about 3,861 square miles (10,000 square km) west of the Orkney-Shetland Islands that stretched above sea level by almost as much as 0.6 miles (1 km). Researchers suspect it is part of a larger region that merged with what is now Scotland and may have extended toward Norway in a hot, prehuman world.